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This rendering shows what could be a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the “departures curb” that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the aerial perspective of what could a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the “atrium area” that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the “check-in and landside commercial area” that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the atrium, as seen from the security checkpoint area, that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the “meeter/greater area” that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the “baggage reclaim area” that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows a bridge to a parking garage that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

This rendering shows the rental car center area that could be part of a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.
Pittsburgh International Airport

The plan includes a new “landside” terminal where passengers would arrive to the airport and proceed to a modern check-in concourse. There also would be new security area and baggage-claim system.

Further, the update would eliminate the need for the “people mover” train that Pittsburgh passengers currently must use to go between the existing “landside” and “airside” terminals. The latter is the post-security terminal that’s home to most of Pittsburgh’s boarding gates as well as its beloved “Airmall” shopping area.

Renderings released by the airport show the new landside terminal would be blended in to an existing area of the existing airside facility, essentially consolidating them. Two-dozen of the airport’s current 75 gates would be eliminated. Pittsburgh says only 39 of the gates are currently being used.

The new plan would remake the airport that was revolutionary when it opened in 1992. Since then, however, Pittsburgh International has since become suboptimal for the city’s modern-day needs.

The current design was built almost exclusively to specifications called for by US Airways, which at the time used Pittsburgh as a major connecting hub that ranked among the nation’s busiest. The airport’s four passenger concourses were laid out like an X, giving connecting fliers a relatively short walk between gates – no matter which concourse they arrived to and departed from.

Charles Alford, a US Airways customer service worker from Raleigh/Durham, proudly shows off his boarding pass to be on the last-ever US Airways flight on Oct. 16, 2015, in San Francisco.
Ben Mutzabaugh, USA TODAY

At the center of the “X” was the Airmall, a mall-like operation at the center of the airside terminal. It offered robust food and retail options and promised “street pricing.” Though the concept has been widely emulated since, it was an untested concept for U.S. airports when it debuted in 1992. The new terminal proved popular among fliers, both local and connecting.

But US Airways – now part of American Airlines – ran into financial turbulence from the late 1990s into the 2000s, undergoing multiple bankruptcies amid a prolonged struggle to survive. In 2004, US Airways formally “de-hubbed” Pittsburgh, the first move in its decade-long downsizing there that pared hundreds of flights from the airport’s schedule.

A steep decline in passenger numbers followed, leading to difficult times for the airport. Officials there even went so far as to wall off the ends of some of the concourses as passenger counts dwindled, allowing the airport to save money by shutting off utilities at the shuttered gate areas.

But Pittsburgh’s airport has found new life this decade, its fortunes rising as low-cost carriers like Southwest, JetBlue and Spirit helped fuel new growth there. Now, under the leadership of ambitious new CEO Christina Cassotis, some swagger has even appears to have returned to the airport.

A US Airways aircraft painted in the colors of the Arizona Cardinals NFL team is seen in Phoenix on Oct. 7, 2011. The plane is one of several that the airline painted in the colors of pro football teams.
Tom Tingle, The Arizona Republic

In addition to its improving passenger numbers, Pittsburgh has now landed two new routes to Europe. In November, WOW Air announced it would fly from Pittsburgh to its hub in Iceland, from where fliers could connect to about two dozen other European destinations. That gave Pittsburgh its first year-round service to Europe since 2010. Three days later, Germany’s Condor Airlines announced seasonal service to Frankfurt. That gave Pittsburgh its first non-stop link to Germany since 2004, when US Airways discontinued its Pittsburgh-Frankfurt route as part of its hub dismantling there.

Now, the new terminal would continue Pittsburgh’s momentum as the airport shifts from a hub to one focused on local passengers.

“The plan unveiled Tuesday amounts to the ultimate makeover for a terminal opened as a US Airways hub in 1992 but one that now serves less than half the traffic and has more gates than it needs,” the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette writes in its recap of the news.

“The people of Pittsburgh finally get an airport built for them and not US Air,” David Minnotte, board chairman of the Allegheny County Airport Authority that operates Pittsburgh International, adds to the Post-Gazette.

The new landside terminal would be constructed between the C and D concourses that are part of Pittsburgh’s existing X-shaped airside terminal. The plan was approved Tuesday by the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

The agency says no local tax dollars would be used to fund the project, which could start as early as 2019 and wrap up by 2023. Officials also said the effort would not result in higher landing fees for airlines using the airport.

The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review offers more details on funding, writing “bond money would be used to finance most of the project costs. Revenue from airport parking, concessions and retail sales also would be used, along with revenue from Consol Energy's Marcellus shale gas drilling operations on airport land, Cassotis said.”

The existing landside terminal would be bid out for redevelopment or – if there are ultimately no takers – demolished.

"The airport was built 25 years ago for an application that's no longer valid. Pittsburgh is no longer a large hub airport," said Mike Boyd, a Colorado-based airline industry consultant with The Boyd Group, says to the Tribune-Review. "You have to invest money to make the airport work for the future. This shows rational thinking. If you're going to do something, do it right."

Lufthansa's newest Boeing 747-8i takes off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., on its delivery flight to Frankfurt, Germany, on March 25, 2015. The jet is painted in retro colors from the 1970s.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY

Lufthansa's newest Boeing 747-8i takes off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., on its delivery flight to Frankfurt, Germany, on March 25, 2015. The jet is painted in retro colors from the 1970s.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY

The Museum of Flight's Boeing 727, the very first ever made, is prepared for a rare, final flight in Everett, Wash., on Jan. 30, 2016. The jet is expected to fly sometime in early March.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren for USA TODAY

A United Airlines Boeing 747-400 takes off from a busy San Francisco International Airport in March, 2017. United will retire the venerable jet from its fleet by the end of 2017.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, special for USA TODAY

Virgin Atlantic founder and U.K. entreprenuer Sir Richard Branson takes questions from the press during the launch of the airline's new London-Seattle route, in Seattle, on March 27, 2017.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, special for USA TODAY

Members of the media explore the cabin of Cathay Pacific's new Airbus A350-900 during its first visit to Vancouver, Canada, on March 28, 2017. The event marked the first regularly scheduled A350 service for Canada.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, special for USA TODAY

Members of the media explore the cabin of Cathay Pacific's new Airbus A350-900 during its first visit to Vancouver, Canada, on March 28, 2017. The event marked the first regularly scheduled A350 service for Canada.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren, special for USA TODAY

A Cathay Pacific Airbus A350-900 takes off from Vancouver International Airport in British Columbia for Hong Kong on March 28, 2017 - the first scheduled A350 service to Canada.
Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren / special

This rendering shows what could be a new $1.1 billion landside terminal at Pittsburgh International Airport. The renderings show “early conceptual designs” for the facility.(Photo: Pittsburgh International Airport)